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Online Libraries: Are You Checked Out?

Apr 9, 2011 11:53 am

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In 2009, Cushing Academy created a huge ruckus within the library community by announcing that it was eliminating the vast majority of its print collection and “going digital” with its collection. Certain individuals and institutions praised the innovation. Other groups protested Cushing’s folly. Still others protested that this was the right decision, but too fast and too soon. The real truth is that Cushing’s actions have cast a bright light on a deep divide within libraries: the divide between “books” librarians and “media specialists” librarians.

In past years, and even still very much today, your worth as a librarian was in some way measured by how many volumes were in your collection. Even today, one of the biggest and most progressive libraries in the world, the United States Library of Congress, boasts openly in its “Fascinating Facts” about the millions of books it has on 838 miles of bookshelves. The more books you had in your collection, the bigger your library and, therefore, your worth as a librarian. Want to become a better librarian? Build your collection.

However, particularly in recent years, this definition of a librarian has been challenged by digital natives, those individuals born in the later 1970’s when the “Digital Age” is defined as having begun. The problem with digital natives is that they don’t think in terms of books: they think in terms of information and access to that information. In considering the move to a digital library, Cushing Dean of Academics Suzie Carlisle has openly stated in an NPR article that their students simply weren’t turning to print resources first. Instead, they were turning to online ones. A digital library, then, is a natural course of action in a library seeking to best suit the needs of a majority of its patrons.

The decision, though, prompted a swift and virulent reaction by library associations, including a letter addressed to Cushing headmaster Dr. James Tracy. (You can read a reprint of that letter in School Library Journal.) The principal thrust of the letter was that library collections are built carefully by their librarians over a long period of time with the needs of the library’s principal users in mind. Given Cushing’s own research into how its patrons conducted research, one could certainly conclude that the librarians at Cushing actually did have its patrons in mind by moving to a digital collection.

With respect to the stronger, former half of this argument, though, the associations certainly have a potentially strong argument. Depending on the individual librarian and rates of turnover, the library may have a finely-honed, precisely crafted collection tailored to the specific users. This precision typically isn’t available in a electronic format, where collections are often purchased in “electronic bulk.” Think in terms of a wholesale club: instead of getting the precise mix you want, you must purchase a “bulk pack” that may or may not have all of the things that you need or want. More important, as School Library Journal Editor-in-Chief Brian Kenney wrote in a scathing letter/article titled “The Biggest Losers,” some resources just aren’t available in digital format.

While these criticisms might be true, they may be mere indicators to a shift in libraries rather than a rationale for not moving forward digitally. CNN has highlighted the shifts in libraries in recent years, but is quick to point out that the underlying principal behind libraries – that as a community center for learning – has not changed. The way in which that knowledge is consumed, however, is rapidly changing. Librarians must realize that their fundamental roles as “shepherds” leading us to the right information has not changed: they must help us to find the needle in the voluminous haystack that is the online database. Cushing librarian Tom Corbett highlighted this role in an article for School Library Monthly titled “The Changing Role of the School Library’s Physical Space.” As a recent survey conducted by Cengage Learning showed, the results of which were published in LibraryJournal.com, many students are turning to such databases first in conducting their research.

The library is rapidly changing from a collection of books to a collection of electronic resources. However, this doesn’t mean that the role of the library – or of the librarian in particular – is in any way diminished. More than ever, patrons will need help in locating the resources and information most germane to their inquiry in the ever-rapidly-expanding sea of information that is the Information Age. Evolved correctly, the modern library will continue to serve this role, and to maintain its position as the community center for learning.

The Inerrant Word of . . . Wikipedia?

Mar 12, 2011 5:18 pm

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An interesting blog post by Wayne Bivens-Tatum, a Philosophy and Religion Librarian at Princeton University, compared the authorship of the Bible to Wikipedia, a collaboratively-authored encyclopedia. Both works are the result of a myriad of authors, though, depending on your specific religious disposition, you might believe God to be the ultimate author of the former, and therefore inerrant. The same regard is not held for Wikipedia: teachers often rant about its inaccuracies, and frequently forbid students from using it as a source for research. But, is Wikipedia really inaccurate? Is Wikipedia rotting the minds of our nation’s youth?

A number of studies have actually been undertaken on this topic, so much so that Wikipedia itself has an article dedicated to the topic. One of the first to attempt to study this was The Guardian, a British daily. In their study, experts were asked to review articles related to their fields, with most articles receiving favorable marks. In a now famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) study on the topic, the British weekly journal Nature pitted Wikipedia against popular Encyclopedia Britannica. Its findings (payment or subscription required) were that serious errors occurred about equally between the two encyclopedias, and that Wikipedia was only marginally less reliable with respect to minor errors. (A free review of the research can be found in “Wikipedia survives research test” by BBC News.) Other studies have found similar results, some with Wikipedia actually slightly outpacing its commercial competitors. Wikipedia is anywhere from slightly more authoritative to slightly less authoritative than a traditional commercial encyclopedia, depending on the particular study and methodology.

Of course, study methodologies are closely scrutinized, and the Nature study was, not surprisingly, openly criticized by Encyclopedia Britannica. Nature responded to the open criticism with a point-by-point rebuttal. One of the more interesting outcomes of all this scuttlebutt is a Wikipedia article that lists errors present in Encyclopedia Britannica that are corrected in Wikipedia. According to the article, it was started to serve as a reminder that no encyclopedia is perfect, and “as an illustration of the advantages of an editorial process where anybody can correct an error at any time.”

However, it is Wikipedia’s editorial process that is at the heart of the debate. Heretofore, we have relied on academic “experts” writing on the subjects of their expertise. In the Wikipedia editorial process, originally even anonymous authors were allowed to contribute. Is a collaboratively authored encyclopedia, written by the “general public,” as “authoritative” as an encyclopedia authored by experts? (See the aforementioned blog post by Mr. Bivens-Tatum for a great discussion on authority in sources.) At initial blush, it would seem that the answer is yes. On the other hand, Wikipedia may no longer fit this definition. Precisely because of vandalism of pages on prominent people such as Edward Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd, Wikipedia has decided to limit changes to articles on people, a change detailed in a The New York Times article. Such changes serve as barriers to entry, which may have stagnated Wikipedia’s growth. According to the article, Ed Chi of Palo Alto Research Center has found that the site’s growth hit a plateau in 2007-2008.

The Economist has elucidated such limitations and its impact on the future of Wikipedia in an amusing article titled “Wiki birthday to you,” written in Wikipedia-style. The Economist points out that the editorial review process has gotten increasingly more complicated over the years as Wikipedia has “grown up,” and that regular contributors have dropped by as much as a third. In the aforementioned The New York Times article, Michael Snow, chairman of the Wikimedia board, the nonprofit that oversees Wikipedia, openly discusses the fact that Wikipedia has moved beyond its initial frontier heyday, and that more discipline is now required.

The real irony in Wikipedia is that, as it institutes increased rigor and discipline, it becomes more like the commercial entities that it has dethroned in page viewership. As it becomes more like them, its ability to draw interest from the public at large. And, as contributions decrease, there could be a real spike in errant entries. In so doing, could the inerrant (or at least less errant) Word of Wikipedia become what teachers have always feared it was?

Digital Textbooks: Is Steve Jobs the Next Gutenberg?

Feb 20, 2011 9:23 pm

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When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid 1400’s, he fundamentally changed the way that information was accessed. Prior to his invention, the creation of books was largely the work of monks, who painstakingly copied them by hand. With the printing press, however, it was now possible to mass-produce books, and at a unprecedented speed. Gutenberg had unwittingly launched the Printing Revolution, a truly seminal event in modern history. The result, some 500+ years later, is a world in which books are easily and readily available to everyone through an infrastructure of writers, publishers, bookstores, and public library systems. Gutenberg democratized knowledge by making books easily and readily available to virtually everyone who could read.

But are we on the precipice of another revolution? In late 2010, leading online retailer Amazon announced its “Best of 2010” lists in a December 30, 2010 press release, detailing that its Amazon Kindle, an e-book reader, was the single bestselling item it sold for the year. Not to be outdone, Barnes & Noble, a leading online and brick-and-mortar bookseller, announced that its e-book reader, the nookcolor™, was the top holiday gift, and that its entire nook™ product line is its biggest bestseller in the company’s history. Are these devices furthering the democratization started by Gutenberg? Or does the way in which they make information available create a revolution of its own? And what does all of this mean for education?

While the end result of the eBook Revolution – and what it means for education – is not yet clear, a few schools have already begun deploying digital readers and digital textbooks. In Burlington, MA, the Burlington High School has decided that it will launch a 1:1 initiative based upon Apple’s iPad. Details of the plan were outlined in a Boston Fox affiliate WFXT news story. More dramatic, state education officials in Florida have rolled out a five-year initiative to make all school textbooks completely digital by 2015. In short, there is already significant and substantial momentum to eliminate the traditional textbook and replace it with some form of a digital equivalent.

The reasons for the replacement are clear: students will now need to carry only a single device to school rather than many pounds of textbooks, and the information in the digital textbooks can be more “interactive.” Additional reasons have been outlined in a 2010 white paper by The Florida State University PALM Center. However, before one leaps too eagerly to the promise, one should be aware that digital textbooks do not deliver on all of its promises: a recent study by The Student PIRGs found that digital textbooks cost about the same as similarly-priced hard textbooks. Moreover, because there is no such thing as a “used” digital textbook, digital textbooks were significantly more expensive than used hard textbooks. This problem, though, may be only temporary. As the move to digital textbooks is transformative, it makes possible for new entrants to the market who are not bound by the “conventional” rules. These innovators will, no doubt, force downward price pressure.

Perhaps the bigger shift, though, will be in the way that we think about textbooks. When iTunes reached critical mass, it forced a very important change, highlighted by The Christian Science Monitor in its article “Three ways iTunes, and its 10 billion in sales, changed music industry”, in the music industry: it pushed the end of the album and the rise of the single. Likewise, the shift to digital textbooks will likely force the disaggregation of the traditional textbook. For years, it has been possible to purchase portions of various textbooks and present them as a coherent “coursepack.” The advent of digital textbooks will no doubt accelerate this disaggregation as instructors pick and choose the pieces that they wish to present to students.

So where does a school begin in a disaggregating textbook market? Unfortunately, the answer is not clear, as multiple digital reader platforms exist. In a recent The New York Times article titled “Among E-Readers, Competition Heats Up,” staff writer Joanna Stern does a round-up of the digital readers on the market, outlining the pros and cons of each. If consumers need guidance on which reader to buy, it’s clear that convergence in the market has not yet occurred for normal books let alone digital textbooks. The situation is very reminiscent of one seen played over and over in technology, years ago with the VHS versus Betamax, and more recently with Blu-ray versus HD DVD. However, format wars needn’t preclude a school from exploring digital textbooks. Thanks to devices such as the Apple iPad and sundry Google Android-based tablets – as well as apps in both iPad and Android varieties from the major players in the digital reader market – it’s possible to hedge one’s bets or even use digital texts from multiple sources.

It’s also possible that such devices could potentially preclude the need for format convergence. VCR tapes and DVD discs has to converge because consumers simply wouldn’t purchase two devices that perform the same function. In the world of digital readers, apps make it possible to have a single device that can perform multiple functions. What is clear, though, is that digital textbooks are increasingly being adopted, and that the many possibilities of them – and the devices on which they are read – make them a compelling choice over the traditional textbooks.

By the way, though, it is Michael Hart who is oft-credited with inventing the eBook, not Steve Jobs. Which is more important to the eBook Revolution, the inventor of the book itself or the companies that have popularized it? I’ll leave you to decide.

Social Media: The Big Bad Wolf

Feb 13, 2011 3:57 pm

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Opinions on whether social media sites should be allowed in primary and secondary schools are often divided between those who believe in an educational value to the sites and those who believe that only evil can come of them. Depending on the person, social media can be either deity or devil. The latter perspective is bolstered by visceral news stories such as that of Phoebe Prince, a teenager from South Hadley, MA, who committed suicide over bullying via text messages and Facebook. Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers student, committed suicide after his roommate and another student had webcams trained on him while he engaged in sexual activity with another man. Although social media wasn’t directly involved in this incident, it was on Facebook where Clementi posted his final words.

Given these traumatic outcomes, it certainly gives one reason to pause and consider whether social media ought to be allowed in the educational context at all. Indeed, content filtering companies such as Websense speak ominously about the social media while featuring their logos prominently:

Facebook. YouTube. Search, search, search. You’re on the Web so much that it feels like home. But just around the corner, one or two clicks away, real danger lies in wait.

With danger lying just around the corner, it’s really a wonder that schools allow any access to the internet at all.

However, a recent study by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) paints a different picture. According to the study, only 0.08% of the students in the study said that they had met someone in person from an online encounter without the parents’ permission. Moreover, only about 7% of students self-identified themselves as having been cyber-bullied. According to bullying statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics, a division of the U. S. Department of Education, about 32% of students reported having been bullied during the 2007 school year, approximately the same time as the NSBA study. Assuming that both studies are accurate, incidents of cyber-bullying make up a tiny fraction of overall bullying incidents. While the mainstream media would have us believe that Facebook and other social media sites are the root cause of all evil, these statistics clearly point to traditional bullying as the larger issue that needs to be addressed.

That said, just because something is not a problem – or not a problem at the level we think it is – does not in and of itself make that thing worthwhile in the educational context. According to the same NSBA study, the three top social media activities were posting messages, downloading music, and downloading video . . . likely not educational activities unless the videos were, say, on how the ventricles pump blood. On the other hand, though, the study does give us some promise: 10% of those surveyed said that they had participated in collaborative projects, and 9% said that they had submitted articles to websites. If the curriculum were designed properly, such social media sites could both reach students where they are and leverage educational benefit. Arguing against the blocking of social media sites, Slate writer Nicholas Bramble offers some insightful suggestions in his article “Fifth Period is Facebook.”

Mr. Bramble is right: blocking students from Facebook and other social media sites is not the right approach. With over 500 million users – half of whom log onto the site on a daily basis – and 70% of whom are outside the United States, Facebook is clearly a part of the global community. Social media has increasingly become the way that people network, find jobs, research products, and collaborate. To remove it from the school setting is to deprive students of the opportunity to learn more about how to fully leverage these tools for education, professional development, and advancement. According to a recent article in Education Week titled “Social Networking Goes to School,” many schools have begun to realize the potential educational benefits of social media, and have begun incorporating it both in the classroom and for the professional development of the teachers.

Perhaps we’ve gotten the story wrong. Maybe social media isn’t the big bad wolf but is, instead, little red riding hood. She’s got a basket of tools that could be used to benefit students. Will you use them?

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